Stage 9, Tour de France
The riders, rested as they were, put the vigour back into their legs as they set stage nine on fire with some electric racing to the finish. Oscar Freire and Robbie McEwen fought to the last few metres, before Freire clinched it at the finish. The stage from Bordeaux to Dax is the precursor to the assault on the Pyrenees, as the tour reaches the foot of the mountains at the end of stage 9.
The 169 kilometre stage saw some pacy riding by the cyclists who set the finish ablaze in a mass sprint lead by Freire and McEwen at speeds approaching 60 kmph. Eric Zabel finished third a shade in front of Tom Boonen. It was a fantastic finish to the stage, with four of the best sprinters in the world vying for the line.
The first serious attack of the stage came seven kilometres into the race from Christian Knees, the Milram rider who is a teammate of Eric Zabel. He was caught ten kilometres later by Stephane Auge and Walter Beneteau who had to pursue him for almost ten kilometres before joining him at the front. The leaders built a handy lead of almost eight minutes, 60 km into the stage.
T Mobile started to work the peloton with support from Credit Agricole, Lampre and Quickstep to cut the leaders to size. As the peloton built momentum, they nibbled down the lead to just over three minutes forty kilometres to Dax. There were under four kilometres to the tape when the leaders dissolved into the sprinting peloton.
Meanwhile, tour contender Levi Leipheimer lost a further 26 seconds owing to an accident in the pack. He had earlier lost more than six minutes in the previous stage. His tour hopes are now shattered, almost certainly, if there is such a thing as a certainty in sport.
The main peloton were all credited with the same time, which means Serhiy Honchar the Ukrainian riding for T Mobile will retain the yellow jersey ahead of Floyd Landis and Michael Rogers.
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